ODF for MS Office

"" At first, "We weren't sure it could be done. But, we stepped outside
the box and worked on it. Our expectation of success was very low. Now,
we're surprised at how it works. With it, every 32-bit Windows user can
use ODF. ...

Of course, as Edwards points out, the Foundation is out to move
ODF to the center of office documentation, not to champion any vendor's or
open-source group's office suite. ...

Edwards concluded by saying that he's now waiting for the "Microsoft ODF
plugin to show up. Microsoft has said that if the demand is out there,
they will produce it. If Bill Gates holds up a finger to judge the wind
for ODF demand today, he'll get his arm ripped off." ""

Nice! The winds of change are a blowin' strong!

Have A Nice Cup of Tea

--
1/ Migration to Linux only costs money once. Higher Windows TCO is forever.
2/ "Shared source" is a poison pill. Open Source is freedom.
3/ Only the Windows boxes get the worms.

Advertisements

Have A Nice Cup of Tea wrote:
> http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS5139606687.html
>
> "" At first, "We weren't sure it could be done. But, we stepped outside
> the box and worked on it. Our expectation of success was very low. Now,
> we're surprised at how it works. With it, every 32-bit Windows user can
> use ODF. ...
>
> Of course, as Edwards points out, the Foundation is out to move
> ODF to the center of office documentation, not to champion any vendor's or
> open-source group's office suite. ...
>
> Edwards concluded by saying that he's now waiting for the "Microsoft ODF
> plugin to show up. Microsoft has said that if the demand is out there,
> they will produce it. If Bill Gates holds up a finger to judge the wind
> for ODF demand today, he'll get his arm ripped off." ""
>
> Nice! The winds of change are a blowin' strong!

1 journalists opinion of ODF

"At this point in the conversation, they've managed to convince me that
the OpenDocument format was 5 to 100 times less efficient."

"Why even mess with OpenDocument when it's such a huge liability in
performance and offers no advantage in competing with Microsoft? Stick
with Microsoft's lean binary format but if you must have XML, use
Microsoft's open XML format since it's still much faster than ODF."

Advertisements

On Sun, 07 May 2006 17:46:55 -0700, Nathan Mercer wrote:
> Have A Nice Cup of Tea wrote:
>> http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS5139606687.html
>>
>> "" At first, "We weren't sure it could be done. But, we stepped outside
>> the box and worked on it. Our expectation of success was very low. Now,
>> we're surprised at how it works. With it, every 32-bit Windows user can
>> use ODF. ...
>>
>> Of course, as Edwards points out, the Foundation is out to move
>> ODF to the center of office documentation, not to champion any vendor's or
>> open-source group's office suite. ...
>>
>> Edwards concluded by saying that he's now waiting for the "Microsoft ODF
>> plugin to show up. Microsoft has said that if the demand is out there,
>> they will produce it. If Bill Gates holds up a finger to judge the wind
>> for ODF demand today, he'll get his arm ripped off." ""
>>
>> Nice! The winds of change are a blowin' strong!
>
> 1 journalists opinion of ODF

Not to mention a quote from a statement by an official spokesman for M$.

> "At this point in the conversation, they've managed to convince me that
> the OpenDocument format was 5 to 100 times less efficient."

How could they compare the Open Document format with the .doc format when
M$ Word cannot open & save to the ODF, and no developers of Open and Free
word processing software have been given sufficient information from M$ to
enable them to develop the proper filters for the many .doc file formats.

> "Why even mess with OpenDocument when it's such a huge liability in
> performance and offers no advantage in competing with Microsoft? Stick
> with Microsoft's lean binary format but if you must have XML, use
> Microsoft's open XML format since it's still much faster than ODF."

LOL!

The Nathanbot points to somebody who claims that a _file_ _format_ has a
"huge liability in performance".

ODF is the ONLY ISO standard for file formats for office productivity
software. Not even the .doc formats are ISO standards.

M$'s version of XML for office productivity software is neither Open nor
an ISO standard.

M$ had an opportunity to contribute to its development, but chose to have
nothing to do with it rather than contribute. Thus it's shills and bots
have no leg to stand on when criticizing the ISO standard.

Have A Nice Cup of Tea

--
1/ Migration to Linux only costs money once. Higher Windows TCO is forever.
2/ "Shared source" is a poison pill. Open Source is freedom.
3/ Only the Windows boxes get the worms.

On Mon, 08 May 2006 18:49:22 +1200, Have A Nice Cup of Tea <>
exclaimed:
>
>ODF is the ONLY ISO standard for file formats for office productivity
>software. Not even the .doc formats are ISO standards.

Really, though, since they have something like 97% of the market,
surely they should get to choose the standards, or at least the
formats that their software uses?

Why should you get to tell them what their software can and can't do?
The majority of people are quite happy with .DOC format.

Fred Dagg wrote:
> On Mon, 08 May 2006 18:49:22 +1200, Have A Nice Cup of Tea <>
> exclaimed:
>
>> ODF is the ONLY ISO standard for file formats for office productivity
>> software. Not even the .doc formats are ISO standards.
>
> Really, though, since they have something like 97% of the market,
> surely they should get to choose the standards, or at least the
> formats that their software uses?
>
> Why should you get to tell them what their software can and can't do?

Because selling stuff that works the way we the customers want it to is
a great way to do business.
The majority of users don't buy into this bickering fascism, an
interchange format filter is just a useful tool.

..doc is MSWords internal format, ODF is an interchange format, it might
even come in handy for shifting documents between successive releases of
MSWord. ;-)

On Mon, 08 May 2006 20:36:09 +1200, shannon <>
exclaimed:
>>> ODF is the ONLY ISO standard for file formats for office productivity
>>> software. Not even the .doc formats are ISO standards.
>>
>> Really, though, since they have something like 97% of the market,
>> surely they should get to choose the standards, or at least the
>> formats that their software uses?
>>
>> Why should you get to tell them what their software can and can't do?
>
>Because selling stuff that works the way we the customers want it to is
>a great way to do business.

Fred Dagg wrote:
> On Mon, 08 May 2006 20:36:09 +1200, shannon <>
> exclaimed:
>
>>>> ODF is the ONLY ISO standard for file formats for office productivity
>>>> software. Not even the .doc formats are ISO standards.
>>> Really, though, since they have something like 97% of the market,
>>> surely they should get to choose the standards, or at least the
>>> formats that their software uses?
>>>
>>> Why should you get to tell them what their software can and can't do?
>> Because selling stuff that works the way we the customers want it to is
>> a great way to do business.
>
> Yep, and the customers overwhelmingly like the DOC format.

On Mon, 08 May 2006 22:41:31 +1200, shannon <>
exclaimed:
>Fred Dagg wrote:
>> On Mon, 08 May 2006 20:36:09 +1200, shannon <>
>> exclaimed:
>>
>>>>> ODF is the ONLY ISO standard for file formats for office productivity
>>>>> software. Not even the .doc formats are ISO standards.
>>>> Really, though, since they have something like 97% of the market,
>>>> surely they should get to choose the standards, or at least the
>>>> formats that their software uses?
>>>>
>>>> Why should you get to tell them what their software can and can't do?
>>> Because selling stuff that works the way we the customers want it to is
>>> a great way to do business.
>>
>> Yep, and the customers overwhelmingly like the DOC format.
>
>They don't care.
>
Exactly.

> shannon scribbled:
>> Fred Dagg wrote:
>>> On Mon, 08 May 2006 18:49:22 +1200, Have A Nice Cup of Tea <>
>>> exclaimed:
>>> ODF is the ONLY ISO standard for file formats for office
>>> productivity software. Not even the .doc formats are ISO
>>> standards.
>> Really, though, since they have something like 97% of the market,
>> surely they should get to choose the standards, or at least the
>> formats that their software uses?
>> Why should you get to tell them what their software can and can't
>> do?
> Because selling stuff that works the way we the customers want it to
> is a great way to do business.

It's the only way to do business succesfully.
Telling your customers that what they're using ain't broke but you should
using something else isn't.
> The majority of users don't buy into this bickering fascism, an
> interchange format filter is just a useful tool.

But many OSS/ODF advocates say they should.
> .doc is MSWords internal format, ODF is an interchange format, it
> might even come in handy for shifting documents between successive
> releases of MSWord. ;-)

> shannon scribbled:
>> Fred Dagg wrote:
>>>> Why should you get to tell them what their software can and
>>>> can't do?
>>> Because selling stuff that works the way we the customers want it
>>> to is a great way to do business.
>> Yep, and the customers overwhelmingly like the DOC format.
> They don't care.

On Mon, 08 May 2006 19:17:53 +1200, Fred Dagg <>
wrote:
>On Mon, 08 May 2006 18:49:22 +1200, Have A Nice Cup of Tea <>
>exclaimed:
>
>>
>>ODF is the ONLY ISO standard for file formats for office productivity
>>software. Not even the .doc formats are ISO standards.
>
>Really, though, since they have something like 97% of the market,
>surely they should get to choose the standards, or at least the
>formats that their software uses?
>
>Why should you get to tell them what their software can and can't do?
>The majority of people are quite happy with .DOC format.

The majority of people were quite happy with pounds, shillings and
pence. They were quite happy with miles, horsepower and calories.
People are always generally happy with things they are used to. It
does not usually mean much, in the same way that all those personal
testimonials on ads for magnetic petrol savers do not mean much.

On Mon, 8 May 2006 23:30:11 +1200, "Max Burke" <>
wrote:
>> shannon scribbled:
>
>>> Fred Dagg wrote:
>
>>>>> Why should you get to tell them what their software can and
>>>>> can't do?
>>>> Because selling stuff that works the way we the customers want it
>>>> to is a great way to do business.
>
>>> Yep, and the customers overwhelmingly like the DOC format.
>
>> They don't care.
>
>What's more they/we dont nedd to care....
>
>> You're too much of a fan.
>
>Naa just happy with using something that ain't broke.....

Well, actually, Microsoft has usually broken the .doc format with
every new release of it. Have you ever tried loading a file saved
Word 97 that was supposedly saved in that format by a later version?
It rarely works. That is the sort of reason that we need well defined
open formats for.

On Mon, 08 May 2006 13:00:20 GMT, Stephen Worthington
<34.nz56.remove_numbers> exclaimed:
>On Mon, 08 May 2006 19:17:53 +1200, Fred Dagg <>
>wrote:
>
>>On Mon, 08 May 2006 18:49:22 +1200, Have A Nice Cup of Tea <>
>>exclaimed:
>>
>>>
>>>ODF is the ONLY ISO standard for file formats for office productivity
>>>software. Not even the .doc formats are ISO standards.
>>
>>Really, though, since they have something like 97% of the market,
>>surely they should get to choose the standards, or at least the
>>formats that their software uses?
>>
>>Why should you get to tell them what their software can and can't do?
>>The majority of people are quite happy with .DOC format.
>
>The majority of people were quite happy with pounds, shillings and
>pence. They were quite happy with miles, horsepower and calories.
>People are always generally happy with things they are used to. It
>does not usually mean much, in the same way that all those personal
>testimonials on ads for magnetic petrol savers do not mean much.

On Mon, 08 May 2006 13:04:18 +0000, Stephen Worthington wrote:
> Well, actually, Microsoft has usually broken the .doc format with
> every new release of it. Have you ever tried loading a file saved
> Word 97 that was supposedly saved in that format by a later version?
> It rarely works.

That i$ becau$e M$ is more intere$ted in forcing people to "upgrade" and
thu$ pay $$$$$ again and again. If they had the ability to read and write
to a standard file format that can be opened by any word processor, people
would have to continue to ride the Micro$oft treadmill.

Have A Nice Cup of Tea

--
1/ Migration to Linux only costs money once. Higher Windows TCO is forever.
2/ "Shared source" is a poison pill. Open Source is freedom.
3/ Only the Windows boxes get the worms.

Max Burke wrote:
>> shannon scribbled:
>
>>> Fred Dagg wrote:
>
>>>>> Why should you get to tell them what their software can and
>>>>> can't do?
>>>> Because selling stuff that works the way we the customers want it
>>>> to is a great way to do business.
>
>>> Yep, and the customers overwhelmingly like the DOC format.
>
>> They don't care.
>
> What's more they/we dont nedd to care....
>

There have been some pretty embarrassing leaks of revisions contained as
metadata in .doc files.

Max Burke wrote:
>> shannon scribbled:
>
>>> Fred Dagg wrote:
>
>>>> On Mon, 08 May 2006 18:49:22 +1200, Have A Nice Cup of Tea <>
>>>> exclaimed:
>
>>>> ODF is the ONLY ISO standard for file formats for office
>>>> productivity software. Not even the .doc formats are ISO
>>>> standards.
>
>>> Really, though, since they have something like 97% of the market,
>>> surely they should get to choose the standards, or at least the
>>> formats that their software uses?
>>> Why should you get to tell them what their software can and can't
>>> do?
>
>> Because selling stuff that works the way we the customers want it to
>> is a great way to do business.
>
> It's the only way to do business succesfully.
> Telling your customers that what they're using ain't broke but you
> should using something else isn't.

???

Cup of Tea and Fred Dagg and Max Burke don't have customers

When all the dust settles in the chicken coop, Microsoft will just add a
filter.

Fred Dagg wrote:
> On Mon, 08 May 2006 13:00:20 GMT, Stephen Worthington
> <34.nz56.remove_numbers> exclaimed:
>
>> On Mon, 08 May 2006 19:17:53 +1200, Fred Dagg <>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, 08 May 2006 18:49:22 +1200, Have A Nice Cup of Tea <>
>>> exclaimed:
>>>
>>>> ODF is the ONLY ISO standard for file formats for office productivity
>>>> software. Not even the .doc formats are ISO standards.
>>> Really, though, since they have something like 97% of the market,
>>> surely they should get to choose the standards, or at least the
>>> formats that their software uses?
>>>
>>> Why should you get to tell them what their software can and can't do?
>>> The majority of people are quite happy with .DOC format.
>> The majority of people were quite happy with pounds, shillings and
>> pence. They were quite happy with miles, horsepower and calories.
>> People are always generally happy with things they are used to. It
>> does not usually mean much, in the same way that all those personal
>> testimonials on ads for magnetic petrol savers do not mean much.
>
> The government owns the currency, so decides the denominations.
>
> Microsoft owns the word processing market, so decides the format.
>
> Sounds fair enough.

Not to the National Archives of Australia, they have settled on ODF.
So has NARA, the national archives of the USA.
They think the technology to search public document archives should be
in the public domain.

"Have A Nice Cup of Tea" <> wrote in message
news...
> On Sun, 07 May 2006 17:46:55 -0700, Nathan Mercer wrote:
>
>
>> "At this point in the conversation, they've managed to convince me
>> that
>> the OpenDocument format was 5 to 100 times less efficient."
>
> How could they compare the Open Document format with the .doc format
> when
> M$ Word cannot open & save to the ODF, and no developers of Open and
> Free
> word processing software have been given sufficient information from
> M$ to
> enable them to develop the proper filters for the many .doc file
> formats.
>

It's called benchmarking. Heard of that? You take the best performing
open-source office suite, which should presumably handle open-standard
odf the most efficiently, and measure memory loading and cpu
cyle-times through some typical tasks. Then you take Microsoft Office
and do the same with its proprietary formats. Result: "the
OpenDocument format was 5 to 100 times less efficient". Granted, the
Open Office suite has long been known to be a pig, odf or no odf. But
then maybe open-source FUDites like you should spend a little less
time trumpeting the value of open standards and a little more time
developing some software based on those standards that actually works
well.
>
>> "Why even mess with OpenDocument when it's such a huge liability in
>> performance and offers no advantage in competing with Microsoft?
>> Stick
>> with Microsoft's lean binary format but if you must have XML, use
>> Microsoft's open XML format since it's still much faster than ODF."
>
> LOL!
>
> The Nathanbot points to somebody who claims that a _file_ _format_
> has a
> "huge liability in performance".
>
> ODF is the ONLY ISO standard for file formats for office
> productivity
> software. Not even the .doc formats are ISO standards.

ISO has invented a "standard" for everything under the sun? Who cares?
ISO standards are procedural standards -- do this, do that -- nothing
more. They have nothing to do with measuring quality. While I'm
pleased to know that open-source developers can follow directions, I'd
be happier knowing that they could actually produce desktop
applications and file formats that out-performed their proprietary
counterparts.

impossible wrote:
> "Have A Nice Cup of Tea" <> wrote in message
> news...
>> On Sun, 07 May 2006 17:46:55 -0700, Nathan Mercer wrote:
>>
>>
>>> "At this point in the conversation, they've managed to convince me
>>> that
>>> the OpenDocument format was 5 to 100 times less efficient."
>> How could they compare the Open Document format with the .doc format
>> when
>> M$ Word cannot open & save to the ODF, and no developers of Open and
>> Free
>> word processing software have been given sufficient information from
>> M$ to
>> enable them to develop the proper filters for the many .doc file
>> formats.
>>
>
> It's called benchmarking. Heard of that? You take the best performing
> open-source office suite, which should presumably handle open-standard
> odf the most efficiently, and measure memory loading and cpu
> cyle-times through some typical tasks. Then you take Microsoft Office
> and do the same with its proprietary formats. Result: "the
> OpenDocument format was 5 to 100 times less efficient". Granted, the
> Open Office suite has long been known to be a pig, odf or no odf. But
> then maybe open-source FUDites like you should spend a little less
> time trumpeting the value of open standards and a little more time
> developing some software based on those standards that actually works
> well.
>
>>> "Why even mess with OpenDocument when it's such a huge liability in
>>> performance and offers no advantage in competing with Microsoft?
>>> Stick
>>> with Microsoft's lean binary format but if you must have XML, use
>>> Microsoft's open XML format since it's still much faster than ODF."
>> LOL!
>>
>> The Nathanbot points to somebody who claims that a _file_ _format_
>> has a
>> "huge liability in performance".
>>
>> ODF is the ONLY ISO standard for file formats for office
>> productivity
>> software. Not even the .doc formats are ISO standards.
>
> ISO has invented a "standard" for everything under the sun? Who cares?
> ISO standards are procedural standards -- do this, do that -- nothing
> more. They have nothing to do with measuring quality. While I'm
> pleased to know that open-source developers can follow directions, I'd
> be happier knowing that they could actually produce desktop
> applications and file formats that out-performed their proprietary
> counterparts.
>
>
Interoperability independent of vendors is something that most people
would never dismiss as Who Cares ?

Its pretty useful to have nuts and bolts that fit each other, serial
interfaces that work together, RJ45s that fit, weights and measures,
paper sizes plugs and sockets, standard voltages, battery sizes etc.
Why should office documents be exempt ? some special case, so some US
corp can get fat ? I don't think so.
Neither do Adobe, IBM, Intel, Novell, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, BEA,
EDS, SAP

Even Microsoft is listed as a sponsor on the OASIS site

It means that different tools from different vendors can search
electronic document archives

Share This Page

Welcome to Velocity Reviews!

Welcome to the Velocity Reviews, the place to come for the latest tech news and reviews.

Please join our friendly community by clicking the button below - it only takes a few seconds and is totally free. You'll be able to chat with other enthusiasts and get tech help from other members.
Sign up now!